Amsterdam - Day 1 - 21st May

Day 1 in Amsterdam

Having a lazy morning as all of us are still feeling a bit tired from yesterday's late night and the apartment has an absolutely gorgeous view over the canal from our living room that we don’t mind spending time in the apartment and have a bit of down time!

 

The only drawback about this apartment is that Amy’s bed is in the living room/dining room so that isn’t so convenient for Colin and I staying up and Amy going off to bed but everything else is great

 

The dining area where the laptop is set up for getting up to date with the blog

 

So we certainly weren’t disappointed with the views this morning

 

Unusual design of wardrobe and cupboard space but it will do us perfect J

 

The view out of the front windows – cyclists rule here and the sights we have been seeing are making us stop and stare!!  We have seen little babies on seats at the front of the bikes and an older child riding on the back of the same bike, we have seen baby carriers strapped onto bikes, people perched on the carrier bit at the back, no cycle helmets on either bicycles or scooters, loads of people on mobile phones and then nearly crashing into something but it doesn’t bother them and a guy on a scooter has his shopping in one hand his little boy standing in between his legs and then drives off the pavement!!  Eeeek this is normal life in Amsterdam but it is fascinating us!  So our windows are perfect for people watching with a difference as majority of them are on bicycles!

 

We are heading out of our front door to supposed to be the Best Pancake Bakery in Amsterdam and to the supermarket for supplies

 

Here is our steep spiral staircase to get to the ground floor!  This was why we were sooooo glad when Herbert told us he had a lift to take our suitcases up last night!!  It would have been a bit tight!! 

 

It has been a while since Colin had keys and been the man of the house locking up our residence!!

 

Front door

 

Looking up the road that we are living on

 

The canal we look onto.  Our apartment is on the right hand side of the photo

 

Cool way to navigate through the canals

 

We head for our wander not far really but the pavements are narrow and the cyclists

seem to be out in force!

 

We have found an example of the baby seat at the front with the little windscreen for the baby and the toddler seat on the back!

 

So we are heading to the supermarket but feel this is a more appropriate diet for us after the over indulgence of the cruises we have just been on ha ha!!

 

Looks like a yellow Buddleja butterfly bush, Colin says it smells sweet like honey

 

 

Now this is a bit random I spy these things in the window and wonder what they are?? The person who owns them has put a sign on the window telling everyone that they are Naked cats, they are absolutely wrong looking things, sorry if I offend anyone that has one but ewh!!

 

Now this is where we are heading for our brunch, yummy!!

 

Just need to cross the canal

 

This place has been recommended by Herbert from our apartment so it better be good, it does say on the sign ‘The best pancakes in town’ let's see, licking our lips now xx

 

We are excited, children’s menu with all different types of pancakes including Princess, Police, fireman, Surprise and Animal pancake and then I spy a gluten free pancake option too, we are very happy girls JJJJ

 

Colin is happy too he is having a savoury pancake, his favourite too and Amy and I can watch the guys cooking our pancakes in the background

 

Ooooooohhhhhh Amy’s princess pancake has come with Nutella spread, a few sweets and a princess set!  We were just not sure what a Princess Pancake was going to come with!! 

The pot of Nutella is amazing though :O)

 

Gluten free Nutella and Banana pancake, oh yummy!!!  And the banana is cooked as well so it tastes like when I bake bananas with chocolate on the BBQ, one very happy girl :O)

 

Colin’s American pancake with Cajun chicken, veggies and salad, we all absolutely enjoyed our pancakes, licking our lips at the end and you can imagine Amy had to lick her lips, fingers, cheeks and all her face well not quite, but nearly, only joking!!!

 

Next task is to find the supermarket, pretty building but not the supermarket that is for sure!

 

It is nice and relaxing just wandering through these quaint streets of Amsterdam

 

Oh yeah and minding the bicycles, flowers and veggie plants growing at the side of the street too as we are walking along these pretty streets!

 

We’ve found the supermarket, Amy is picking her bread out!

 

Oh dear Colly what an adventure trying to get shopping!!  Amy and I leave Colin to it in the supermarket as he only has to pay for the shopping when he scuttles out after queuing to tell Amy and I that the supermarket does not accept cards, eh strange!!  We haven’t been carrying much cash around with us we have been using our cards as we have been getting a good exchange rate from them.  The supermarket woman has told Col where there is an ATM so he scuttles across the road but then comes back as the machine has told him that they cannot communicate with our bank, oh gosh what now!!  So he goes back in to see if there is another ATM near and there is another one across the road in the other supermarket so off he scuttles again and comes back hooray with cash!!  He goes back in, pays and packs up the remainder of the shopping so now you can understand the expression on his face when he came out of the shop!!

 

We headed back home with the shopping it was funny as the geese fly really low.  We were standing on a bridge at the time when they started flying and we weren’t sure whether they were going to go under or over the bridge, funny!!!!  They went under made us laugh but for a moment thought we were going to be having goose in our mouths for dessert!!

 

The washing has been on today and what a perfect sock drier certainly won’t be filled with anything else whilst we are here for 3 nights!

 

We are quite happy sitting chilling watching the world go by from our apartment, this is lovely and relaxing and it is great getting the blog up to date!

 

Amy and I fancied doing some baking so we got some Cake Pops as from the supermarket as from what we could translate you only needed to add 50mls of water for the cake mixture

 

Col is having a lie down so the girls are baking!!  Amy using her 5ml syringe for measuring out the 50mls of water we need for the mixture!  Is this classed as a science and maths class combined!!

 

Now I see a little picture that shows a machine that you need for making the cakes a cakepopper machine!!!  It cooks the cakes in round little balls, ah huh I wondered how you could get the cakes like that but never mind we will make do!

 

Col is awake now and we are onto the chocolate mix, that is pudding sorted for tea tonight…..

 

Now main course, Amy’s favourite Cajun chicken!

 

Tea time, Cajun chicken sandwich, almonds, Pom Bear crisps, Smarties yoghurt and our pop cake effort

 

Amy with her popcake

 

The girls showing off our baking effort

 

Just chilling after tea watching the world go by on bicycles of course!!

 

So other than chilling out, Amy had an extremely long bath in the extremely big bath, baking, cooking tea and updating the blog and catching up with emails we have done nothing else today it has been great to recharge our batteries as we did have full on days in Moscow!   Tomorrow is going to have to be our whistle stop tour of Amsterdam!!